The sky over the Red Waste bled crimson and gold as Vezdaryon soared northward. Below him, the earth stretched barren and scorched, the sand cracked and lifeless, the bones of long-dead creatures half-swallowed by dunes. He had outgrown this place.
The desolation the emptiness, he'd feels like he was an exile wandering a burned land. with his wings stretched wide and shadow eclipsing the desert sun, the world felt small beneath him.
He no longer thought in the way a human would. Memories of Jake were shadows now ghost flickers buried under years of fire, sky, and blood. The name meant nothing. The boy had died in another life. Now, there was only Vezdaryon Son of Flame and Destruction. That name, born in Valyria, spoken only in his thoughts, fit him like the searing wind that curled beneath his wings. It was the name the fire in his chest had whispered. It felt true. It felt earned.
His body bore the marks of that truth. Scars like rivers of blackened stone streaked along his hide, faded only slightly with time. His wings bore the tears of countless battles, now healed into thickened ridges of scale. The wyverns of Valyria, some nearly his equal in size, had left their signature across his body, and he theirs in bone.
He was not invincible, but he was victorious. Always.
The Red Waste disappeared behind him in the haze, and the land slowly transformed. Red faded to ochre, then green and gold. As the land began to breathe again with life, so too did something stir in him not memory, but hunger.
Not of the belly. Not the ache for flesh or fire. But something deeper. Something instinctual.
Vezdaryon caught the scent first, high above the great plains of central Essos. It was faint, like a distant fire on the wind, smoke, horses, sweat, and steel. He angled his wings slightly, catching an updraft, and began his slow descent toward the source.
The horizon shimmered in the distance. Great tents dotted the land below hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, clustered like beetles in a field. The banners of the Dothraki snapped in the wind. Beneath them, the horse-lords feasted, danced, trained, and slaughtered each other in ritual and sport.
He'd seen men before traders, wanderers, lost pilgrims but never in numbers like this.
And they had never seen him.
He circled high above, casting his shadow over the camp. At first, there was confusion. Men squinted skyward. A few pointed. Then came the shouts, and then the screams. Horses panicked, rearing and breaking their tethers. Warriors scrambled to don armor or flee. A few brave souls, or foolish ones, notched arrows and loosed them skyward. They bounced harmlessly off his scales.
He hovered.
Not attacking. Just watching.
A part of him still recognized what this meant. A part of him remembered being small, hiding in the shadows of Dragonstone. Watching. Learning.
But now he was not small. He was the storm. He was the flame.
And they had dared raise weapons to him.
The fire swelled in his throat before he made the decision to unleash it. And perhaps it wasn't a decision at all.
Perhaps it never is.
He tilted his wings and dove.
Wind screamed past him as he folded into the dive, the air rushing so fast it blurred the world into streaks of green and tan. The first line of tents came fast—then vanished in a bloom of fire as he opened his jaws and roared flame across them.
They didn't stand a chance.
Canvas vaporized. Flesh turned to ash. Screams were swallowed in the rush of dragonfire that swept the plain. He pulled up sharply, wings outstretched, beating once, twice, to gain height before arcing around for another pass.
There was chaos below. A khal's khalasar, scattered like ants under boiling water.
He did not pause to consider what they had done. Whether they were raiders, slavers, or kings of this plain. He had seen their spears raised to the sky, and it had offended him.
Not as a man.
As a dragon.
Flame spilled from his mouth once more, searing the field in a long crescent of heat. Horses screamed. Riders burned in their saddles. A line of tents burst like dry kindling, sending black smoke spiraling into the sky.
And as he climbed higher, circling once more, something strange happened.
He smiled.
Or the dragon's version of it a sense of pleasure humming through his body, low and warm. Not glee. Not joy. But satisfaction.
A predator's high.
It frightened him just for a heartbeat. That tiny flicker of something still human flinched at the smell of burning hair, the sight of blackened bones. But it was fleeting. A whisper lost in the wind.
He roared again not in anger, but in declaration. This sky belonged to him.
Below, the few survivors had mounted up and fled, vanishing into the open plains. The camp was a ruin, tents collapsed, bodies smoldering. Fire crawled in low lines across the grassland, devouring everything in its path.
He banked again, then climbed higher.
He had made his point.
He flew on, the wind screaming around him, fire lingering in his lungs, the distant smoke trailing behind him like a crown.
There was no guilt.
There was no regret.
Only instinct, and the rising call of the skies ahead.
For Vezdaryon, it had never been clearer he had been born in fire. And in fire, he thrived.
He flew until the sun dipped low, painting the clouds blood red. Below, the plains rolled endlessly westward, dotted with rivers, herds of wild horses, and the flicker of torches from other roaming bands.
He did not dive again. He did not burn more.
That first fire had been enough. A message. A mark.
This land, this sky, they would remember him.
He glided silently above the clouds, his wings casting no shadow in the twilight, the fire in his chest finally dimming to a calm, controlled simmer.
Tomorrow, he would fly further. Toward the Bone Mountains. Toward the edge of maps. Toward the unknown.
But tonight, he flew in silence, content in the knowledge of what he was becoming and what he had already become.
——
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